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The Right To Unionise
By Ed McDonnell (see bottom of page)
Below
this introductory text is
the
work, free to download.
Whether
or not people think of themselves as
workers
(many do not), the great majority are.
They
do know, full well, what power employers
have
over themselves and other workers in
making
a living. But they do not really know
how business people (and
public employers),
get
this power, or how they themselves
have
the right, as workers, to get even
with
them by unionizing.
Using
everyday language and our common
experience,
The Right To Unionise shows
how
employers get this power. They should not
be
bosses because, according to economic theory,
workers
trade with them in the job deal as equals.
And
The Right To Unionise shows,
in the language
of
their own free market economics, how business
people
use marginal
utility on people as if they are
just inert goods.
It
shows how it is unacceptable, a big political issue,
that
they have and use this power, often brutally,
over
supposedly all-in-it-together fellow-nationals,
fellow-citizens.
It shows how business people and governments
obstructing citizens from organising together,
(as business people can, but in unions), should
also be unacceptable, how it should be a civil
right, a constitutional right.
Free Downloads click on the red .pdf
links
1.
The book
The Right To Unionise.pdf v.2023.10, 210 pages -
Titled The Right To Organise
In Unions until v.2023.5, June 2023
2.
A standalone short download.
Employers are organised, as businesses
and as public bodies. Their organisation
is recognised in law and, obviously, in
workplaces. We are entitled to our
organisation as workers to
be recognised at work too.
3.
A single page of
summary diagrams
The Right To Unionise
Chart.pdf
4.
Buy
a print copy of The Right To Unionise,
coil-bound for easy reading, at 11.00 GBP
or equivalent, plus postage from
'The
Right to Unionise' on Lulu.com
A Quick Read of The Right To Unionise -
People know they would be stronger unionised
but need to be able to make the case more clearly
to each other and to be able to make the political
case for their entitlement to be.
Here, the key point:
An employer is stronger than a worker not because
they can get someone else from the unemployed
but because, in our industrialised societies,
they
already have someone else, in fact many others,
because they usually have many staff. Because of
that, they have not much need for any one worker
and can drive a hard bargain with them, as they do.
So the deal you make with an employer for a job,
on your own is unfair. So unfair, in such an
important activity as making your living, it is
totally wrong and unacceptable.
This, the core of the case for the right to unionise,
urgently needs making, to fellow workers, to
people generally, the media, and politicians.
It should include the point that businesses
are people organized together. So are public
services. They act together, as organizations,
collectively, all day, every
day. This is how
they can dominate everybody else.
The majority, mostly workers, should get
each other to see why they too have the right
to organize and act together, collectively. Not
as a right for the unions but for themselves,
jointly.
Its the biggest political problem we have
because, without the majority of
people
being organized, it leaves not only
earning
a living but also politics, the
most important
public activities, to be dominated
by business
people, in their own self-confessedly
selfish,
private interests.
Its time we caught up with the Industrial Revolution:
They are organised, We
need to be.
And are entitled to be.
The Right To
Unionise is taken from
The System Explained which is at
The Right To Unionise includes these
summary reads of The System Explained -
(both here in large
text for reading on phones/devices.)
Reviews of 'The System Explained' -
North West Labour
History -
far from an academic handbook on
your
rights at work; has the feel of the
shop floor.
The late Tony Benn, socialist activist and politician -
a great book to explain the essentials.
Ed McDonnell
is a retired
lecturer.
He taught courses for union workplace
reps/shop stewards and has been active
in the labour
movement and class politics
for fifty years, in the UK.
End of website